Torch of the Fire Spirits
by Cell's Twin Sister Celita
Summary: Although it isn't directly stated, it's Ash's Charizard talking here.


Torch of the Fire Spirits  
  
The small animal that says it's my master wants me to do a match against some other small animal. Heck with that. The small animal that says it's my master isn't the boss of me, no matter how much it pompously postures, preens and struts for the other small animals. I'm a fire dragon, for goodness sakes. I set my own hours and make my own rules. I don't have to listen to the small animal. And I usually don't. Usually. But there's this one thing the small animal that says it's my master uses sometimes when dealing with me. Somehow or other, the small animal that says it's my master got a hold of the awesome, all-powerful Torch of the Fire Spirits. One look at the exalted flame means instant zombie time for me. It's strange, but I don't mind. I would endure many unending hours of zombie time for just the slightest glimpse of that sublime flame.   
  
Uh-oh. With a snap, I'm suddenly out of the close, stuffy darkness and in an arena. It looks like the small animal that says it's my master is calling on me anyway. It knows I won't listen to it, and yet it's calling on me anyway. What nerve! Anyway, I just sort of hover, going along for the heck of it, waiting to see what happens next. Behind me is the small animal that says it's my master. Ahead of me is another small animal. Its scent… In my honest opinion, this new small animal even smells like an enemy. Looks like I'll be fighting after all. Did the small animal that says it's my master plan this? The new small animal casts something out onto the arena. An instant later, it's like I'm staring into a mirror. I'm surprised at first, but only at first. Then something else takes over. Something inside me goes cold with savage fury. The other is an unwanted intruder into my territory. My territory! All other thoughts are banished from my mind. Attack! I snort a stream of orange fire and glare at the other. The challenge is out, issued by me. The other quickly takes the challenge. We come together with a mighty crash, roaring and snapping. Pretty soon, we're both spewing flames like a pair of blowtorches on overdrive.   
  
We're quickly heading toward a stalemate. It seems like the only thing for me to do in this situation is to go…higher! So I do! Just that! Higher! I flap backward, giving myself a little room to maneuver. Then I spew a mighty fireball at the other. It's the strongest, meanest fireball I've ever seen from anyone, much less seen from myself. The other roars in pain and recoils. Yes! I can win this! The small animal that first sent out the other calls out something. The other turns away from me and sends out multiple flame darts in my direction. I'm pretty speedy, but I can't avoid them all. One strikes my side and another burns straight through my left wing. AAAHHH! It hurts. A lot. And it really sets me off. I lunge at the other with a mighty roar. SLASH! I claw the other's face. RIP! I swipe viciously at the other's eyes. GGGRRROOOWWWLLL! I bite the other. I'm really bulldozing my way to victory now. The other breaks away and flaps backward shakily. I let loose another fireball and roast the other. Aha! Sweet victory shall be mine shortly! I give a short roar of savage triumph before preparing to finish this fight for good.   
  
I hear a voice down below. The small animal that thinks it's my master wants me to stop. Stop? Now? The small animal that thinks it's my master obviously doesn't understand the brutality required for achieving total victory. I don't listen. Not to the small animal, anyway. But what I do listen to is the soft sound of a torch being ignited.   
I look, and I am gone. The small animal that thinks it's my master has lit the Torch of the Fire Spirits! If I give in to its hypnotic power, I'll be defeated. If I'm to win this battle, then I must not look at the torch! But I can't help it. It's so beautiful. Oh, no. I've lost it. I'm gone! I can hear the other drawing closer, unfazed by the burning Torch of the Fire Spirits. Move. Break free. Do something! The small animal is beginning to see just what is going on. Firebird bless its soul! It sees that the hypnosis cast by the Torch of the Fire Spirits is going to lead to me being thrashed! It begins to act, to extinguish the mesmerizing flame, but it's too slow! If I'm to recover in time to hold my place in the lead, the small animal must extinguish the flame much faster. Hurry! Hurry! But it's too late. The other is all over me like fire on a dead tree during a drought. Strong jaws find my neck and bite deep. Still the flame paralyzes me. The other's jaws crush my throat shut and blood flows in a crimson deluge from the wound. I am not moving, not struggling, just lying there staring at the flame. I know that no force on Earth can stop the other from finishing this territorial dispute, the most primal of battles. I know this will end with my death, but what I feel isn't anger or hate. Instead, I feel a strong sense of understanding. The other is drawing this battle to its natural end, just as I would have done. The strange thing is that I feel no pain. Quite the opposite, in fact. I feel good.   
  
Everything is receding and growing dim, the whole world, save for that single flickering, dancing flame. In contrast, the flame seems to brighten and grow even larger. The flame becomes the focus of my mind and heart, the only thing left in the dwindling universe for me. Finally, there is nothing but the flame. It is right about now that the small animal that thinks it's my master extinguishes the torch. The flame quickly dies, the strangely soothing hypnotic force fades from within my mind, and everything crashes in on me. I'm being crushed under the weight of the other, who is now sitting on my chest. I'm struggling to breathe, but I can't get any air, seeing as the other's jaws are locked around my throat with crushing, life-extinguishing force. I'm struggling, fighting for my life, but I'm so weak… My chest is burning with the need to breathe and everything is growing dim. I can feel my feeble struggles weakening. This looks like the end. I notice that I am no longer struggling for my life. The pain is fading away, and so is everything else. I focus my mind on my most vivid memory of the flame in final preparation for the end.   
  
Then the crushing weight on my chest is gone and I can breathe. The air stings in my throat. And there's an unbearable tightness inside my chest. Blood from my wounded neck is pouring down my throat, filling me inside. I'm miles away from any deep water and yet I am drowning, drowning, blood choking me, cheating me and killing me. And there is still pain. Judging from how I feel, I nearly got my head torn off, my body is a mass of bruises, scrapes and cuts, I've nearly been slashed to pieces and my wings are nothing more than bloody rags. My flame-tipped tail moves of its own accord, seeming to be a thousand miles removed from my mind. My wings move of their own accord also. Even the slightest movement of my wings brings unspeakable pain. The pain is a barrier between the world and myself, and it begins to take me away into empty nothingness…  
  
Once again, there is the soft sound of a torch being lit. I hear it with joy. The Torch of the Fire Spirits, twice in one day! Now its flame will hold my mind here, aware of everything and yet without pain. My eyes are open and I stare at the torch, relaxed and without pain. I see the small animal that says it's my master approaching me, holding the torch. For the first time in my memory, I can see its face. I can see the expression on its face, too. I see concern. Genuine concern for my health. Well! Maybe the small animal is actually worth obeying, after all! I mentally flip my flame-tipped tail, since I cannot do it in real life. I decide that, if I survive, the small animal will no longer have to rely solely on the torch to command me. I'll obey it. No, I'll do more than that. I'll try to become its best fighter. Oh, yes. I'll train and I'll train… No opponent will ever maul me like this again!   
  
Firebird bless, it's a long night. A varied assortment of other small animals has taken me to a new place. This place is small with white walls. I hate it. And the strange small animals fairly reek of other creatures, the scent of whom freeze my heart and stop me cold. But they are helping me, and they seem to understand my natural fear. But nothing they do seems to calm that fear. It simply grows. In order to calm myself, I close my eyes and remember the events of my as yet short, fiery life from the very beginning…  
  
I open my eyes for the first time, looking out upon a new, strange world. The light blinds my eyes as I blink and I am small, small and weak. I am wet, yet the tiny flame at the tip of my tail warms me right up. Two faces look down on me and they are big, big and fiery. Dry now, I stand up. I look and I see me for the first time. I am a small orange lizard with a yellow tummy and I walk on two legs. I look nothing like my parents, who are huge orange-colored dragons. How I envy them their strong wings, their twin upswept horns!  
  
I am a little older now as I run and play in the flat plains near where my parents nest. I am just beginning to be self-sufficient as I chase small flying bugs and fish for minnows. When the rains come, I run back to the nest and hide under my mother's wing, shivering in fear of the falling water. I learn very early on that water is A Very Bad Thing, after falling in the river and being terribly sick for weeks. More careful now, I still go fishing.  
  
I am fully self-sufficient now, and I have broken off from my parents. I wander the forest, searching for a safe, dry place to call my own. I eventually cross paths with a large creature that appears to be some sort of animal. The animal throws a round red and white thing and another creature comes out. The new creature is more my size and looks like a turtle with a long, curled tail. It sends a jet of water at me. Water! The very thing that I am most afraid of! Yelping in fright, I run around in circles, trying to evade the jet of water coming from the turtle. The animal throws another round red and white thing, this time at me. There is a big flash of bright red light and everything goes dark.  
  
I figured I was as good as dead, but that was only at first. I learned that the animal didn't want to hurt me. It just wanted me to join its growing team of motley creatures. There was a large crested bird, its colors light brown and creamy white. There was a big blue butterfly with red eyes and a trilling voice. There was the turtle I had seen before. There was a creature that looked like a big frog with a plant on its back. And, last of all, there was a large yellow mouse with the power of thunder. These new creatures were to be my teammates. I will go along with the animal's strange plans, but I will immediately leave and strike out on my own when I grow strong enough to do so.   
I become one of the animal's strongest fighters, wielding both flame and strength with great finesse. I even begin to form friendships within the group which I am a part of. The turtle and I sometimes play tag and I even have chats with the yellow mouse. The fights I participate in are very fun, and I have only one defeat. That defeat occurred in a battle against a ghost. How could I, a fiery little lizard, stand up against a scary ghost?   
  
I have just finished up a battle in which I was up against a strange thing that is like a gigantic walking tree. I sort of strut around a bit, very proud of myself, and then something happens. The flame on my tail surges high, stronger and hotter than before. Then white light begins to envelop me. I run around in circles, giving a wailing cry of shocked fear, trying to get away from the light. I feel myself changing, so I let it happen. When the light goes away, I see that I am different. I'm bigger than before. And I am red with a gray tummy. I still walk on two legs. I have a horn. I am also slimmer than before, and a whole lot stronger. Still no wings, though. What a huge disappointment.   
  
I am not the only thing that has changed. I no longer feel as connected to the others as I did before. I think I left my friendship with them behind when I changed forms. And I feel nothing but derision toward the animal that is our leader. I still fight, but I'm a lot harder to coerce into action. The only reason I fight is that there are stronger opponents out there, just waiting for me to thrash them. Fighting is nothing but fun for me!   
  
Many battles later, another change comes upon me. This time I'm not scared. This time, I had advance warning. For the last five days I had been feeling strange shifts taking place just beneath my skin as bone and muscle reshaped themselves into new forms, just waiting for the final change to take place. It goes easier than before, seeing as I'm not fighting it this time around. The flame on my tail grows again. Now it's a real inferno. The light comes again and I feel the change upon me, the change I have been waiting for all my life. I have wings! Real wings! Whoopee! Now I'll be able to fly! And I also now have two horns, just as my parents did. All the things I had envied them, I now have.   
  
Days have passed and I still haven't kept the promise I made upon my capture. I keep saying 'I'll do it tomorrow, I'll just fly away, tomorrow I do it,' but I never do. I can't just abandon my friends. Although I still feel distant and shut away inside, I have regained my lost kinship with the members of my team. As for the small animal, how can I regain what I never really had? I don't listen to its orders or its pleas any more. Had I had the time to do so, I could have grown to become its friend when I was tiny. But I didn't. I listened to its orders because I didn't know what else I could do. I still don't.  
  
I am called forth from the close, stuffy darkness. Oh, it's just the small animal again. Has it called me to humiliate itself more as it tries in vain to get me to listen to it? I curl up for a nap, getting into my customary 'go away, I'm not listening to you' position. There is a small soft sound and the small animal calls my name. Bemused, I look over at where it stands. It holds a torch. I look at the torch and its indescribable beauty takes me away. The Torch of the Fire Spirits! But how? It doesn't matter how. The important thing is that when I am looking at the torch, I am unable to stop myself as I do whatever the small animal says to do, and I do not care. I only want to look at the torch and nothing more.   
The next day, I'm just fine. I don't know how the small animals did it, but they did it. I guess it's time for the small animal that says it's my master-no, the small animal that is my master-to come get me. I wait for it to come and it does. I'm surprised when I find that I can understand it. Maybe to understand its words I had to first be open to listening. It's saying, "Are you feeling better, Flare Star?" Is that my name? I never had a name before, but I have one now. I am Flare Star. I didn't know that I actually had a name! The name is yet another gift from the small animal. I learn my name and I learn from the yellow mouse that the small animal's name is Ash. Cool! A fire name! How worthier of my obedience can a small animal get? With a series of rumbling growls, I communicate my intent to be more obedient to the yellow mouse. The yellow mouse fairly bounces up and down and loudly voices its approval. The small animal-Ash-had decided to give me a little privacy in my conversation with the yellow mouse. Now it's talking to one of its friends. I move up behind it and nudge it. It turns around and looks at me. I nudge it again and flip it onto my back. The yellow mouse hops on. I nip the other small animal on the back of its shirt and deposit it on my back as well. Then I take off.   



End file.
